TAH - My Castle Story

I want to preface my remarks by reminding all LIW that you are a participant in your treatment. It is your responsibility to be as informed as possible. Ack questions of your health care providers, make use of the resources they have to offer both in face to face conversations, but also in any literature that may be available.

The more you know, the more prepared you will be. The more prepared you are the less fear and anxiety you will have. The less fear, the less anxiety, the more relaxed you will be. And the more relaxed you are, the less pain you main experience.

I work in health care so I have the advantage of some familiarity. However, my knowledge is mostly in the nursing home field. Be that as it may, I want you to know I had wonderfully compassionate care from the moment I crossed the castle bridge, until the time I was discharged.

I was terribly anemic and had to report to the hospital extra early for a transfusion of two units of packed red cells. I will confess that this is the only thing that scared me. But the nurse was wonderful and my Gyn even popped in to see me a couple of times.

Like so many others, my period hung in there right to the end. "Aunt Flo" even gave a bravura performance just to remind me why I was there.

I went up to the surgical staging area around 3:30pm. I had the wonderfuly opportunity to meet everyone who was going to be involved in my surgery. Senior surgical resident, anesthesiologist and all the nurse technicians. Even the students. This added to my sense of calm. In fact, the one student told me when she came to see me the next day that the anesthesiologist was impressed with me because I was so settled and confident.

They gave me something to relax me in the staging area. I remember nothing after that, not even the time in the recovery room. I remember seeing the clock when they wheeled me into my room at 8:30 pm. I gave the DS a thumbs up and then he went home and I went back to sleep.

I had a PCA and that was either extremely effective, or I had very little post-op pain. The PCA was discontinued the morning after the surgery. I was given Toridol, an extra strength Motrin, that you will find mentioned in many of the posts. I found this to be more than adequate and I was quite comfortable all the time.

My catheter was discontinued the morning after surgery also. I was gotten up to the bathroom and had no great difficulty. The gas pain I got as my bowels started to revive were a bit severe (follow the stool softener recommendations and you should be fine.)

I was given a liquid diet to start with, the day after surgery. The following day my diet was advanced to House. I found that I could not eat everything as I was quickly full.

I took short walks in the corridors and found this helpful. I even took a longer one down to the end of the wing so I could look at the little ones in the nursery. I don't mourn my loss of fertility. I rejoice that I am on the road back to good health.

I was started on Livelle (sp), a low dose patch which seems to be working quite nicely. I've only had one hot flash.

So that's my Castle story ladies. Surgery was Thursday, February 26th and I was discharged home on Sunday the 29th. My staples were removed yesterday and I am on the mend.

:-)